Bent Knees
by rondo
Summary: You are my Judas, Lancelot. You betray me with temptation." (LancelotxArthur SLASH)


A/N: This is just a little piece I wrote for the livejournal community Knightgasm. Obviously it's Lancelot/Arthur, so if the idea of two men in a sexual relationship bothers you, I strongly suggest you leave now. I will not tolerate flames. ConCrit, on the other hand, it _very_ welcome, as are any other comments you have. Enjoy, and _please_ R&R.

Bent Knees

By: rondo

There's a kind of poetry in the way he wields his sword, the way his shoulders clench, muscles moving under flesh, (can't see it under all that armor, but I know), arms taut like whipcords and hands, callused and rough, fingers (nails cracked/dirt underneath) tight around the carved gold hilt. He swings, and his movements are like the cresting of a mighty wave, like the swelling of sweet, beautiful music. Rises (crescendo), cutting through the close, stifling air of battle, meets in a ricocheting scream of metal on metal (fortissimo), comes to its inevitable conclusion and begins again (D.C. al Coda). If I were anything but a knight I would compose great verse to that movement, poetry to make women sigh and men grow quiet in awe, but a knight is all I am or ever will be, and there's nothing to be gained but unnecessary embarrassment in trying to put what I feel when I see him raise mighty Excalibur in fierce challenge to accurate words and have them make any proper sense at all.

There's a kind of beauty in how he kneels to his silent God. He bends his head and pleads for guidance, and I'm starkly reminded of times where he's done that very same thing, though been pleading for something else entirely different. There is such blind faith in that kind of supplication. There is no doubt in his mind. He will receive the strength and guidance that he so desires. He _will_. He doubts (every man doubts, no matter how strong he may be), but that is why he prays, that is why he seeks out his silent corners and falls to his knees, folds his rough, callused hands together and makes his murmured invocations. I will never bend to this god he so adores and relies upon, but I acknowledge this is something he will do, something that will always play a part in the strength which makes him a King in spirit if not yet in words.

There's a kind of symmetry in the way we arc against one another, hands clutching at shoulders, lips on fevered skin, gasping invocations that are quite a world apart from the ones he gasps on bent knees. There's a moment when his deep eyes go dark and his hands tangle helplessly in my hair and the world seems to halt for one glorious eternity. I see in him then a firmness, a wisdom, a selfless strength that shines white hot now that his shields have lowered and gates unbolted. It makes me breathless, even as he holds me against him, our bodies flush and close, and breathes my name as if he needs to reassure himself of something.

He called me his Judas once, and while I did not know the significance of this, the reason behind it, I smiled and asked him to call me some other things as well. He'd looked disconcerted by my flippancy, and that doubt I've spoken of crossed his shadowed features, took root in his eyes, his hands pulling away from where they'd placed themselves on my out-thrust hips.

"You don't understand," he said softly, almost brokenly. "You do not."

"Yes," I agreed. "I do not."

I nearly expected him to explain, but he did not. He moved away, and the coldness, the biting, invasive coldness left his wake was an ugly thing I've felt many times since. Many times.

I asked him later when he returned with a hungry, wild twist to his normally somber mouth, if he thought I might someday betray him, and when he did not immediately answer I showed him Mark 14: 43-46 in his battered, oft-handled Bible and swallowed his reply with lips and tongue and scraping teeth.

In the end he said nothing at all, neither refuting nor supporting my words. In the end, he gathered me close to himself, his lips close to my ear, and wept for his doubt. His tears shook me, and even when we finally parted I still felt numb and hollow to my very core.

"You betray me with temptation," he would say to me at a future time, driving his hips hard into mine and making me gasp in wanting. "You are my Judas, Lancelot. You betray me, and I want it. I welcome it. Do not stop. Please, do not stop."

And even when she came, and his deep eyes followed her in my place, I did not stop.


End file.
